At Best a Contradiction Still
by Zwarte Parel
Summary: Will and Jack must persuade Elizabeth to listen to reason. Polyamory.


**Author's note:** This story and drabble were written for ceriataliesin for the Pirates of the Caribbean Polyficathon in August 2005.

**At Best a Contradiction Still **

"Woman's at best a contradiction still." Alexander Pope, _Moral Essays_, epistle ii, line 270. 

Elizabeth had always had a streak of unpredictability, of course. In the previous few weeks it had been even more evident than usual, but Will decided, afterward, that if she had not insisted on choosing that exact moment to tell them, it might not have all turned out the way it did.

It was late, sometime well after midnight, and the three of them were curled up together in Jack's big bed. A rather good cask of wine taken from the _Black Pearl_'s latest capture had fueled an evening of inventively satisfying lovemaking, and they were all resting in the pleasant haze that inevitably followed. Elizabeth, as usual, had managed to claim the middle spot; she asserted that she was afraid she would roll out of bed otherwise, although Will privately suspected she liked getting double the attention. Not that he minded having her next to him and running her fingers over his chest, even if she tweaked his nipples harder than he might prefer, but it did seem unfair that he never had the chance to do likewise to Jack, nor Jack to him.

That night Elizabeth did not tease, however. She took Will's hand, and Jack's and held them together between her own, saying, "There's something I need to tell you."

"Can't it wait till morning, love?" asked Jack in sleepily reluctant tones.

Will silently applauded the suggestion. If anyone back in Port Royal that two men might be hard-pressed to keep up with one woman, he would have been politely disbelieving. But so it had proved. All he wanted now was to sleep.

"I would think that you would not want to wait to hear the news that I'm going to have a baby," snapped Elizabeth.

Will turned his head in surprise to look at her. A baby? Now, after four years with no suggestion of such an event?

But it was Jack who said the fateful words. "Give over, 'Lizabeth, you're having us on."

"What?" Elizabeth's voice scaled up. "You think I would jest about this? Or is it that you don't want it to be true, Jack?"

"No, love, no," said Jack placatingly. He glanced over at Will for support.

Will did not want to get Elizabeth angry with him, too, if he could help it, but he said, "I'm sure that's not what Jack meant, Elizabeth," and stroked her hip, trying to calm her down with the touch.

"That's right, you just took me by surprise is all," Jack attempted to explain, but Elizabeth did not appear to be listening.

She shook off Will's hand and scrambled out of the bed, pulling on her dressing-gown with hasty fingers, and before either of the men could move to stop her, slammed out of the cabin.

Jack and Will looked at each other. It had all been so fast that neither of them was quite clear on how it had happened.

"I expect she'll borrow Anamaria's hammock, she's on watch tonight," offered Will at last. "I'll try talking to her in the morning, shall I?"

"Right, mate," said Jack. He rolled over, away from Will, who could nevertheless hear him muttering to himself about the contrariness of women and how a good ship never let a man down.

Elizabeth's dudgeon continued the next day, despite all of Will's attempts to soothe her and explain that she had leapt to the wrong conclusion, that Jack's and his own surprise was only that and neither disbelief nor resentment. The fifth time he tried, she stuck her fingers in her ears and walked away.

"Leave her be for now," said Jack, who had been keeping his distance throughout the morning but now came to stand beside Will at the rail.

"But..." said Will helplessly. He hated to see Elizabeth so unreasonably upset.

Jack shrugged. "She'll come around. I remember me own mother, when she was carrying my little brothers and sisters, acted like a different person altogether. It's the babe that's making Elizabeth act like this, I calculate. We'll wait. Give her a day or two and she'll get over it."

"I hope so," Will sighed. "But you know how stubborn she can be."

Indeed, for the next week Elizabeth persisted in ignoring both Will and Jack as much as possible, though she carried out any orders Jack gave to the crew at large. She continued to borrow Anamaria's hammock when the other woman was not sleeping in it, refusing to return to the big cabin, and Will only hoped that she had not confided any details to Anamaria. Bad enough to have the crew whispering about their quarrel, no need to have the exact cause known until necessity demanded it. Gibbs and some of the others had taken months to stop suggesting that a woman aboard would bring bad luck, and if they knew of Elizabeth's condition they would start up again.

Will found that sleeping with Jack was very different without Elizabeth present. The older man had a habit of pressing his face against his bed-partner's shoulder, and Will woke daily to find the gauds and bangles of Jack's braids had imprinted themselves in his flesh. Even their lovemaking lacked the zest it had with Elizabeth present.

One night Will said idly, "I wonder if it's yours or mine?"

"Eh?" grunted Jack. "What's yours or mine?"

"Elizabeth's baby," said Will.

"Yours," Jack said positively. "No question but it's yours."

"How can you be so sure?" Will asked.

Jack sat up against the headboard and smiled ruefully, gold teeth glinting in the lamplight. "How many women d'you think I've had, Will? In all me life and travels? And not one, ever, has claimed I left her with child."

"But could they have found you to tell you?" Will gave what seemed to him to be the obvious objection.

"Some yes, some no," said Jack. "Some of them I came back to see again, maybe months or years later, and they would've said something, wouldn't they? No, Will, it's your child she's carrying. After all this time I'd begun to think you might have the same lack as myself, but it seems not."

Will rested his head in Jack's lap. "If she won't speak to either of us, though, it hardly matters whose it might be."

"You've a point there. And she might fret herself into trouble if we leave her alone too long." Jack scratched at his chin. "Besides, she's more comfortable in bed than you are. Hate to tell you, Will, but that's one bony arse you have."

"Look who's talking," Will laughed up at him, "you with those prickly bits and bobs in your hair. Right though. But how do we persuade her back? She'd beat any mule for stubbornness, as we both well know."

"I'm still captain of the _Pearl_, aren't I? And she's still one of the crew. I'll have her in here tomorrow, we'll talk to her and we won't let her go till she listens to reason," planned Jack. "Simple an' direct is the best way."

Elizabeth was clearly reluctant to come to the cabin, but as Jack said, he was the captain and it was not beyond possibility that he would put her off the ship if she disobeyed his orders. Once there, though, she folded her arms, shut her mouth, and looked straight through Jack as if he were invisible and inaudible.

"Turn her around and lift her skirts," Jack told Will, rolling up his shirt sleeves.

"You wouldn't dare," protested Elizabeth.

"Wouldn't I?" Jack moved up to her. "You're behaving like a child and you know it. If you won't act like the woman you are, I'll paddle you like a naughty infant." He smacked her smartly on the rump, once, twice, three times. Will saw her bite her lip, although he could tell that the blows were not hard, an affront to her dignity more than an injury to her flesh.

Jack had lifted his hand for a fourth swat when Elizabeth said, "All right, I'll listen," and Jack nodded at Will to release her.

She touched her buttocks before sitting down on the edge of the bed. "You should have taken off your rings."

"And you shouldn't've taken off at all, Elizabeth. You should have stayed to hear me out, and you should have listened to Will when he tried to talk to you." Jack's voice was rough. "You didn't give either of us a chance. Strewth, girl, you haven't even let either of us say that we're happy." He walked away to stare out the tiny window.

Will sat next to Elizabeth. "After all we've been through together, sweetheart, you have to realize that this is a surprise. But that doesn't mean it's a bad thing, not at all, even if it means there will have to be some changes."

"Aye, can't rear an infant on a ship," said Jack.

Elizabeth said, "I know that. And I've been – we've been – happy as we were. Will, I'm afraid, for all of us."

He smoothed her hair back and kissed her on the cheek.

Jack came back over and sat tailor-fashion on the bed behind them, leaning forward to put his arms around them both. "Now, no need to borrow trouble. We'll find somewhere to be a safe harbor for you two and your babe, so long as you need it," he said.

"_Our_ babe?" said Elizabeth. "Yours as well, Jack."

When Jack gave her the same explanation he had given Will as to why he was certain Will, not himself, must be the father, she shook her head stubbornly. "No. It's both of yours. I made up my mind about that long ago – I don't want to know or even guess." Her laugh had a slight tinge of hysteria to it, but at least she was laughing. "The notorious devil-may-care pirate, Captain Jack Sparrow of the infamous _Black Pearl_, and I do believe you are afraid of a baby."

"Afraid?" Jack threw up his hands. "Never. Will, are you afraid?"

"Terrified, actually," admitted Will honestly, "but happy despite that." He was. Elizabeth's child would change all their lives, he knew, but the three of them together could master any storms that might come.


End file.
